Miles Joseph Berkeley was born at Biggin Hall, near Oundle, Northamptonshire, on the 1st April, 1803. He was the second son of Charles Berkeley, whose wife was a sister of P. G. Munn, the well-known water-colour artist. His family belonged to the Spetchley branch of the Berkeleys, and had been resident for several generations in Northamptonshire. Berkeley received his preliminary education at the Oundle Grammar School and afterwards at Rugby, entered Christ's College, Cambridge, in 1821, and graduated as 5th Senior Optime in 1825. He was ordained in 1826, and his first clerical duty was the curacy of St John's, Margate. In 1833 he became Perpetual Curate of Apethorpe and Wood Newton, Northamptonshire, and resided at the neighbouring village of King's Cliffe, a name familiar to every mycologist as being the habitat of numerous species of fungi, first recorded as members of the British Flora. In 1868 he was appointed Vicar of Sibbertoft, near Market Harborough, where he died on the 30th July, 1889, at the age of 86 years. As a boy Berkeley was much devoted to the study of nature, paying special attention to the structure and habits of animals; he also at an early age made a somewhat extensive conchological collection. This tendency was to some extent fostered at Rugby, but the influence exercised by Professor Henslow during Berkeley's time at Cambridge, and the opportunities of studying the progress of research made in the various branches of Natural History, were the chief factors that determined Berkeley to enter seriously on the study of what at the time was styled Natural History. His first published paper was "On new species of _Modiola_ and _Serpula_" (_Zoological Journal_, 1828). It was followed by "On the internal structure of _Helicolimax Lamarckii_"; "On _Dentalium subulatum_"; "On the animals of _Voluta_ and _Assiminia_" (idem 1832-34); and "On British _Serpulae_" and "_Dreissenia polymorpha_" (_Magazine of Natural History_, 1834-36).